Mercy for an Old World
by Darksknight
Summary: Orihime gives, and gives, and gives, until there's nothing left for death to take, and in the end, she lives, too.


Solo read, but can be considered a mirror fic/ partner fic to An Embrace Long Since Unhindered as well as a prequel to Without an End in Sight. I'd honestly rate this T, but the mentions of sex are just a little bit TOO present to overlook the M rating. Pairings include Ran/Hime and Tatsu/Hime, but neither are long-lasting. Ulqui/Hime mentions, of course, because that's my endgame, but I tried to focus more on Orihime's character than any pairing. Oh, and if you read the first line and go "nope too out of character bye," don't worry, I don't mean she _literally_ killed someone. Just keep reading for a sec and see if it's to your tastes.

(Mentions of trauma, violence, and suicide. Heavy suicidal thoughts. Basically a therapy fic for me.)

* * *

She kills a man at sixteen.

It's an odd thing, to kill. Death itself is something she'd never been intimately familiar with- it's taken, and taken, and taken, and she has given only because she had no other choice. It first took her brother and it then took her… her…

She doesn't know what Ulquiorra really was to her. Could she describe him, she's not sure she'd have the right to put 'her' before anything he was to begin with.

But he'd been taken, and with that, she'd given.

Now she gives without take.

In her heart, Orihime knows it's not really her fault. She'd never asked to be saved. He'd been warned, over and over again, but Ichigo… He doesn't listen. He's got a hero complex bigger than the fucking desert and a heart without a tongue to swallow his pride with. He dies, and she says, "No," like it isn't over.

Death has taken from her all her life. Just once, she takes back, reaching out, digging her nails into the darkness and pulling, until his soul comes stumbling back in, terrified, agonized, old. He's always been old. He's never really died, not fully, not really. He's never been… this.

It would change anyone, she supposes.

Most of all her.

"Tell everyone I give them my best," Ichigo says, and she watches with a sick feeling, knowing what he's seeing- that fade, that distant look in the eyes, the way the spiritual pressure slips through your hands like ribbons. She knows what it's like- this is all a parallel.

 _"Are you afraid?"_

 _"No."_

It's like looking in a mirror.

"Bye, Rukia."

The only difference being that she'd killed Ichigo- not his lover.

History repeats itself, she supposes.

* * *

She's not guilty the way she should be. If anything, she's bitter- she doesn't envy him, oh no, but it's an acute sort of pain to know that if they'd both just been a little smarter, a little kinder, maybe…

She doesn't despise him, but she finds herself looking bitterly back on the days when she followed him with religious devotion. Her love had died in the fire he'd set to save her soul.

She doesn't blame Ichigo. She repeats it like a prayer in her head- _it's not his fault, it's not his fault, it's not his fault._ Until it's really not, and all she has left for him is a deep-seeded pity. She knows _exactly_ how he feels, because she feels nearly the same.

She had been born with nothing. She's lived with nothing. And now she has nothing again.

She's certain he doesn't know how to deal with it quite the same; having nothing to hold is new to him.

When they come back from war, she still has what little left she made for herself. Ichigo was born into his powers, while she grew hers. Still, the pride they have in their abilities is a great, terrible thing, and without it, she knows how empty he must feel. She doesn't love him, but god, she wishes she had anything left to give, if not to bring him back to life, then simply to ease her guilt.

"Are you…"

She looks up at Mrs. Oochi and blinks.

"Are you okay?"

She's not really sure what to say. Of course she's okay. There's no sand in her boots. There's no hands on her sleeves. She's got both eyes looking forward and two hands to grip her future. Her spirit ribbons play about her feet, like living things, and she can hear the breathing of her fairies as they sleep at her ears.

"I'm okay."

Mrs. Oochi doesn't buy it.

"Inoue… I, I know that maybe, when things happen, you might feel like it's your responsibility- like you don't need to bother anyone, but, Inoue, I promise, it wouldn't be a bother if you need help. I know it must be hard, but-"

"Oh, I don't need help." _Help me, Kurosaki-kun!_ She waves her hands in front of her body and shakes her head, smiling. "Nope, not me! I'm fit as a fiddle, A-OK, ready for action!" She gives a big cheesy thumbs up and feels sick with it.

Oochi seems hesitant to speak, but she goes on anyway. "Inoue… when you… _disappeared_ …"

"I went to see my aunt. She got sick." She shrugs a shoulder and looks down at the desk. "Nothing happened. I'm fine."

"Orihime… I think you and I both know that's not true." Mrs. Oochi says. "What happened?"

"Nothing." She insists. "I told you. I had to stay with my relatives."

"And you just happened to get a bad case of post-traumatic-stress disorder while you were at it?" Oochi doesn't speak unkindly, but her tone lacks the respect Orihime has become accustomed to as a prisoner of war. She doesn't like the pity. She's had pity for as long as she can remember, and it's useless. "I know how hard it must be, I know, Orihime-"

"You don't know." Orihime assures her. She gathers her things up and sets out to leave, like the rest of her classmates did, oh so long ago. "Because nothing happened. I don't want to talk to anyone, but thank you." She nods once, and her smile must be genuine enough, because Oochi doesn't press her.

That, or the cornered look in her eye makes it hard to broach anymore of the subject. It's hard to tell, nowadays.

* * *

She's still poor, coming back from Hueco Mundo. They fed her bigger, better meals than she could usually afford, back when she'd been a captive. Coming back had been hard on her body- not just because she'd had to cut back on meals. She'd lost her appetite for living food.

Everything was too rich. Too salty, too sweet, too hot, too bitter. She nibbled on bread and crackers and plain rice because it was bland and she couldn't remember a time when she had a curious appetite and appeal for the odder foods she could find.

Orihime had a lot of hopes and dreams and wishes before Hueco Mundo. She'd built them up on her funeral pyre when she'd made her way to the land of the dead, sure she was never coming back again, sure she would die for the cause, sure that she'd never be the same.

Well. She wasn't wrong.

She forgets to pay the power bill and doesn't notice the dark for a couple days. The food in the fridge goes bad and she can't afford to buy more. She naps instead of eating dinner and finds it works about the same, anyway.

She wonders if anyone would notice if she vanished again.

* * *

Tatsuki invites her out exactly seventeen times before she stops asking.

Tatsuki leaves exactly thirty-nine messages before she stops calling.

Tatsuki visits her house only once, calling out, "I know you're in there, Orihime! Talk to me, please!"

She doesn't come back.

* * *

She picks her job at the bakery back up. Orihime can't stand to see anything go to waste, and she eats all the mess-ups, until she remembers what it's like to be hungry. She becomes a little more comfortable with a full stomach. It's a good look on her- it smooths out the shadows in her face and makes for a good mask.

Her co-workers ask about the boy she was always talking about. Did they run away to elope? Has she confessed her love? Did he give her any chocolates on white day?

But oh, that was life-times ago, and if Ichigo brought her chocolates now, she'd probably leave them to melt in the sunshine at her kitchen table. She has no love left to confess, and when they ask what happened, she just laughs.

"I fell out of love with him," she says, which is an interesting way to say that she's not really certain she's capable of that kind of love anymore. "He started smoking, anyway," she continues. "And I wouldn't want to go out with a man who smokes!"

She starts to understand Ichigo and wonders how the hell she ever fell in love with him in the first place, if she never knew him to begin with. Now she knows him intimately, the way a lover might, without ever once having met his mouth.

She's glad of it. She'd kissed death's hand once, in her dreams, and she hadn't liked it. Not one bit.

* * *

Ichigo gets into a knife fight the day before graduation. She's sure it's all very noble- he was probably rescuing some helpless kid or a damsel in distress. It's always like that, with him.

He comes crawling to her like a dog with its tail between its legs, bloodied up and shaking. She allows herself a sigh and the slight shake of her head before she sits him at her kitchen table.

"Did you kill anyone?" She asks, and she's not sure why she does.

He looks up from where he'd been staring at her shields, resting over his ruined shoulder in apparent envy. "What?"

She doesn't repeat herself.

"N-no." he says, and it's very, very quiet in the kitchen, but for the faint hum of her healing.

"That's good." She says, and finishes patching him up. She licks her scarred-up lips and nods, nods, nods. "That's good."

There's nothing more to be said, after that.

* * *

She makes all her friends a sweater each for Christmas. It feels like the right thing to do, somehow- a way to say she's still there, despite the vacant stare and trembling fingers. She makes Ichigo's two sizes too big, with fabric so black she had to specially commission it, certain he'll feel a little bit more like he's still there inside of it.

It's her way of saying 'thank you' without letting the words get past her lips; she's too kind for that.

"Thank you," he says. He looks at her like maybe the gift has made it easier to look her in the eye again. She appreciates it. She remembers that once upon a time, she really did love him.

She leans up and forward, lips grazing the shell of his ear. She says, "You're still my hero," but it lacks its past luster. It's probably better that way, she thinks, and draws away, hand caught on his shoulder, wondering if maybe, maybe, she still has something left to give…

She has to keep something of her soul to herself, doesn't she? Hasn't she given enough? Doesn't she get the right to say, "that's enough, that's alright, I'm done now. I'm done." It's the survivor's guilt, Ishida tells her. He's probably right, but to her, it doesn't mean a damn thing.

He's looking at the sweater like its going to consume him.

The words leave her mouth before she can stop them. "I don't envy you."

From anyone else, it might have been almost offensive- at least annoying. Coming from her, though, she can tell he gets it. He doesn't want to, but he does.

He smiles, a little twisted. It doesn't reach his eyes. "That's funny," he says. "Because I envy you."

 _Oh, Ichigo_. She thinks. _You wouldn't say that if you knew the things I've done. The things I saw. The things I'll do to keep on living._

She smiles at him, and it's real, somehow, because there's something uniquely pleasurable about marinating in each other's pain. She thinks that maybe, in another life, if he was the only thing she had left they could have survived on a mutual pity-fuck, on and on again, stitching their lingering bits of humanity into each other's skin, like it was some sort of life.

She deserves better than a corpse. And he's got nothing but his body left to give, and she gave that to him, too, back when it had been destroyed. She feels her pity swell, like a tide, threatening to overwhelm her and swallow her because she was guilty, but she wanted to be selfish this time, and oh, god, they'd really died together, hadn't they?

 _But he took Ulquiorra from you_ , she reminds herself, and the tide ebbs and dies. _Didn't he_?

"Take care of yourself, Ichigo." She says, because he's all he's got, now. She's not going to take that, too.

(And she's all she's got, now. She's not going to let him take that, either.)

She turns and heads back into the thrum of the party, putting on her bubbly persona again like its an All Hallow's Eve mask, feeling his broken stop-light stare on her back as she makes her way.

"Take care of yourself," he whispers, and there it is- he feels it, too. "Orihime."

She will. She won't. It's all black and white, even in this world.

* * *

She starts medical school with Ishida. They leave Ichigo in Karakura, with his cigarettes and his job after job after job, and his scars and his sisters and his father. They hope it's enough.

"You excited?" Ishida asks. He helps her bring her boxes to her room.

She shrugs. She doesn't get excited very often anymore- anxious, maybe. She was only doing what her counselor had urged her to do, something to throw her life at. She's glad Ishida is coming with her. More than that (worse than that) she's glad that neither of them really have much interest in going to school to begin with.

"Me too," Ishida says, and she's not sure if he's saying it about her shrug or if he can read her thoughts. He moves towards the door, all the boxes having been deposited in the middle of the room, and pauses.

"Uryuu?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing. Just… if you ever need anything…"

She fabricates a smile for him. "I'll call."

* * *

She drinks with Rangiku whenever the woman is around.

"I fucking miss him," Ran says, and throws up into the toilet.

Orihime doesn't hold Ran's hair back anymore. She leans over the tub and wills the room to stop dancing. "Me too," she says, but she's not talking about Gin.

She lets Rangiku eat her out, and cries into the futon, body shaking and quivering and- ah, that's nice, to feel the spike of euphoria once in a while. She returns the favor and admires Ran's make-believe body in the moonlight, the skin just a tad too translucent, the hair too soft to be human. Ulquiorra had looked much the same, once upon a time, but now he's just dust on the wind.

She wonders what he would have tasted like.

"Thanks," Rangiku whispers, and kisses her full on the mouth, bitter-lipped and tipsy. "I'll be back soon here, okay? You need anything, when I come back?"

"No." She says. "I don't need anything."

Rangiku eyes Orihime's naked hip-bones in a way that clearly states her disbelief, but blessedly, she doesn't say anything.

"So you like it here, at school?" She asks.

Orihime shrugs. Med school is fine, it's something to do. Something to make up for all the damage she's done. "It's fine." She's not one for small talk, anymore, and with Rangiku she doesn't have to pretend.

Rangiku smiles, bitter. "You'll like it at the academy better."

"Hmm." Orihime watches the other woman dress. "Guess we'll find out. Won't we?"

It's inevitable, after all.

* * *

Uryuu gets into a fight and gets kicked out of school.

Honestly, she'd thought it would be her that would be expelled first, and she'd joked as much with Ishida as she helped him pack his things. He's fallen out of love with her, but he still keeps her close, and loves her harder than any of her other friends do. She loves him back a little bit for it and wishes that they could have made it together.

She can't, now. She'd never drag him down like that. Not even for love.

"What are you going to do?" She asks.

He shrugs. "I don't know. Not. Not fucking medicine. I don't have the stomach for it…" _anymore_ goes unspoken between them.

She fidgets.

"You… you could come with me." he says, slowly. Like she'll bolt if he's too quick. "Back to Karakura."

She shrugs. "I like med school." After a second, she says, "It gives me something to do."

He gets it, somehow.

"Maybe I'll look everyone up," Ishida says, after a moment. "Throw a party so we can all see each other."

"It's a nice thought," she says. _But it isn't going to happen._

"Yeah." He knows. "I'll check on Kurosaki, then. See how he's doing."

"Tell him hi for me." She says, and hands him the last box to be loaded into the moving truck.

"I will."

"And Uryuu?" She reaches out, hand on his arm, remembering that it wasn't there, that it had been her fault, that he'd screamed for the first time since-

He looks into her eyes and she doesn't like it.

She allows it anyway. She swallows. "I'm sorry."

He looks like he could cry again, as he gently shakes her off of him. He hugs her, once, tight and personal- he smells good and clean and alive, and she really will miss him, for everything, for nothing. For being him.

He gives her one last gift before he leaves. "Inoue… There's nothing to be sorry for."

* * *

She starts talking to Tatsuki again. They catch up, they agree to forgive and forget all the old crap. It's awkward and stilted at first, but Orihime still loves Tatsuki, even if it's not in the way that Tatsuki always loved her. Tatsuki has green eyes and black hair, and she's got pale skin, and she doesn't have much of a bust.

Fucking Rangiku is like fucking a mirror.

Fucking Tatsuki is a trip straight back to the past.

She cries, afterwards. Long and hard- the gross sobbing, with snot, and hyperventilating, and shaking. Tatsuki rubs her back and assures her everything is fine, that it's okay, that whatever happened happened and it's done now.

"I'm sorry," Orihime babbles, and wonders who she's talking to. "I'm so, so sorry."

* * *

Three days after they have sex, Tatsuki texts her.

 _"Friends?"_ it reads.

Orihime's heart unfolds like a flower. She's not alone. She's never been alone. Not with Tatsuki. She texts back immediately, and doesn't pause over the send button. _"Friends."_

* * *

Three teachers recommend counseling to her privately before the year is over. She laughs them all off, assuring them that she's fine, just tired- it's not uncommon for people in her class.

The fourth says, "You need help, Orihime." He hands her a card, writes his name on the back, and says, "I know three counselors that specialize in rape cases-"

"I wasn't raped."

He looks up at her. Squints. Nods.

"Alright." He says, and takes the card back, only to hand her another. "Two who specialize in trauma. One who specializes in war victims."

She takes the cards. She doesn't tell him thank you, but she does say, "See you next year," and hopes, somehow, that's enough.

* * *

Someone tries to rob her apartment four weeks after she moves in. She comes home to the burglar shifting around in the darkness just to the right, startled by her entrance. The man pulls a knife but before he can do anything she's on him.

She hits, and flips him, and kicks. Kicks, and kicks, and kicks, until the neighbors hear her screaming and come running, until someone pulls her off and calls an ambulance, until they take him away and she's deposited, sobbing, into Tatsuki's arms, while the police give the coherent woman a run down.

"She nearly killed him," an officer says. "She's a survivor. She'll be fine."

* * *

She misses Karakura town. She sends a few post cards- one to Chad with a bird on it, one to Uryuu with some painted flowers, and one to Ichigo, with a view of the city.

"Wish you were here!" the post card says. She writes in, "Not really, you'd hate it here," but she signs it, "thinking of you." and the period is a little heart.

She sends more knit-wear to them all. A hat for Chad, a scarf for Ishida. For Ichigo, some gloves.

"For your knuckles." She says. "Mine hurt in the cold weather, too."

They've both been broken, and any more, she finds friendship in that. She understands his rage and his pain, and she wonders, privately, which one of them will break first.

* * *

Rangiku stops by when the new school year is about to begin, bearing booze.

"Nice," says Orihime, and she fingers Ran on the couch while they watch crime shows and talk in low voices about the injuries and the blood. They get so drunk they forget what they're even talking about several times, mid-sentence, and then laugh about it before starting all over again.

"I'm really ready to move on," Rangiku says. "Just… don't know how."

Orihime shrugs and thinks about the cards from her professor, stashed away in the kitchen drawer. "It's hard, sometimes."

Rangiku nods to that and says, "I hope I make it easier. You do. For me, I mean."

"You do, too." She says.

Just… not easy enough.

* * *

She gets the news while she's in class.

Her phone clatters off her desk and to the ground- loudly echoing in the lecture hall. The professor pauses, brows drawn together as she turns around to look. Everyone follows her eyes up to Orihime, who can't hold her hands over her mouth tight enough as she lets out a loud, long wail.

She's shepherded out of class sobbing, shaking, and babbling.

"I knew it," she blubbers. "I knew it was coming, I knew it, I could feel it, I should have known, I should have called, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it."

When they finally manage to calm her down and arrange to have her taken home, she's lost in her own mind.

" _Ichigo died."_ the text said. " _This morning. Thought you should know. I'm sorry."_

She'd felt it, deep in her gut- she'd known that everything was going wrong for him, she'd felt him across the country from her bed, full of despair, full of longing, but she'd thought it could wait until after class, somehow. _He's dead. He's really dead_.

He'd done it.

He'd finally done it.

Alone in her apartment, she's furious at him. How could he? After all she'd given and tried and done, to keep him alive after it all, to make sure he knew he wasn't alone. He had the gal to leave her, after everything? After all they'd been through? No text, no "I'm sorry" no warning.

She'd have sent him a text. She'd have made sure he knew she wasn't leaving him alone. She'd have… she'd have done something, before leaping off a goddamn building.

It takes an hour or so, but when she gets back to herself, she's not surprised. It had been like a waiting game- a two year yellow-light, no go, no stop, wondering when he was going to snap and end it all. They'd lied and covered for him and tried, but really, what was to be done?

She cries. Of course she cries. She can't believe she was angry at him at all.

Three a.m. she gets the call from Uryuu, hoping his text hadn't been too much for her. He says he's sorry and lets her known when the funeral will be, softly, like his voice can slip through the phone's speakers and gently take up her hand. She nods before realizing he can't see her and says, "Okay, I'll be there."

When she hangs up she stands in the darkness for a good while.

And it hits her.

 _That could have been me._

She cries for a good while more, silent. When dawn breaks on the new day, she pulls herself to her feet and finds the kitchen drawer, fumbling for the cards. She picks up the last one she'd been given and calls the number.

"Hello?" She cuts off the woman on the other side of the line, who'd opened with the therapist office's name and doctor. "Hi, um. I'm Orihime Inoue? I think… I think doctor-"

"Oh, yes. Yes, he told us to expect a call from you. One seconds, I'll transfer you to Dr. Kida."

It rings once, twice, three times. "Dr. Kida," a man says.

"H-hi." She manages. Her throat is hoarse. "I'm… I'm Orihime Inoue."

A pause.

"I think… I think that, uh. I was sort of planning to kill myself."

"And now?" The doctor asks, slowly.

"I think maybe I need therapy." She says.

"Well then." He says. "Let's get an appointment set up, shall we?"

* * *

Orihime's a clever woman. Unlike any other. She knows, because she's heard it- more now than she hears she's a beautiful woman, that she's a sexy woman, that she's a woman with tits the size of mars… men aren't very creative. But _humans_ , well, humans are something else; animals that can sense just a little more than they probably should. They sense the off-tilt to her axis and they can't help but watch, even now that she's in a waiting room, with others like her, messed up in the head, just a little bit un-done.

She envies Ichigo, dead before twenty, back in control of his mind and his body and his powers. It had only taken a little death for him to live again. Even if she died, her soul would carry her dreams to the next world, and the cycle would go on, and on, and on…

She'll head down to his funeral after her initial appointment, where the doctor will appraise her condition.

She takes a seat at his discretion, only having introduced herself, and smiles.

Dr. Kida says, "My. Well, you have been through hell, haven't you?"

She almost laughs. Instead, she says, "You have no idea just how right you are."

* * *

The funeral is nice.

She thinks it's a pity, really, that he doesn't show up himself, but she can't blame him.

Chad holds her hand the whole funeral, and she smiles at him, wondering how despite it all, he's still such a good man. She used to be good, she thinks. She used to be like Chad. Now she wonders if she could find some sort of solace under his hands, under his mouth, and for a moment she's sickened by herself.

But it's okay. She's going to get better, one way or another, and she and Chad are friends. He wouldn't blame her even if he knew, because he's a good man like that. And she could be like that, again.

She's not in the dirt.

She's still in her flesh.

And despite the scars on her lips, and the tremors in her hands, and the dreams, and the guilt, and the total scope of it all… she'll grow.

She'll grow. She'll grow, or die trying. And that's all anyone can ever really say.

* * *

"Hey," Ichigo says, and he grins at her, leaning in over the cill of her window.

"Hey." She says, and smiles back.

"I gotcha something," he leans into her room and offers out his hand. There's a piece of parchment in it, and she takes it.

 _Espada Rehabilitation Plan,_ it reads.

She laughs. "Oh, Ichigo." She teases. They're really friends, now, aren't they? "You shouldn't have."

"Next life," he promises. "Things will go better. You'll see."

She's oddly touched. "Thank you." She says, slowly. And she means it.

He grins.

 _Next life, huh?_ "Yeah." She says. "We'll see."


End file.
